Psion Alpha (31 page)

“So
you were faking it? That’s great.”

“I
wasn’t faking it. I wanted to be here with you. And I wouldn’t rather be
anywhere else. But what’s out there waiting for us—it terrifies me.”

“We
don’t even know what that is.”

“Exactly.
That’s why I’m so glad you’re here.”

After
saying this, she kissed his cheek and climbed into her cot. A few minutes later,
the rainfall recommenced. When dawn broke, Sammy woke his team. As planned,
they skipped breakfast and split into groups to hunt as much food as possible.
He reminded everyone to keep mind of the time. After two to three hours, they
were to meet back at the same spot and divide what they’d caught.

He
sent a Psion with each team of three. Gibbons and Sherwood went with him along
the river in one direction. In the other direction of the river, Levu
accompanied the Hudecs. Gibbons had a net to catch fish while Sammy and
Sherwood looked for tortoises and anything else edible. Watching Gibbons try to
catch fish in a net was like watching a Thirteen try to win a Miss Congeniality
award. He cursed every time a fish got away. Sammy spotted a large tortoise right
along the shore and barely snagged it before it slipped into the river’s
depths, but got soaked from the waist down in the process.

An
hour into the hunt, an impression came over Sammy that something or someone was
following them. He glanced back a half dozen times to see what it was, only to
find nothing there. But the notion wouldn’t go away. Perhaps Sherwood had the
same idea, because not long after Sammy got that feeling, Sherwood took out his
radio and started fiddling with it. Sammy wanted to ask him to put it away, but
remembered that Sherwood would be leaving the group in only a few hours. No
reason to cause a stir over the matter.

“I
think I saw something in the trees!” Sherwood called out. “A bird. Maybe a
toucan. Should we try to—”

Screams
followed by gunshots interrupted Sherwood’s question. Sammy wasn’t certain, but
the screams sounded like they came from Levu. Gibbons and Sammy both turned to
the source of the cries; Sherwood froze in place, his only movement was
spinning the radio.

“We
gotta go check it out,” Sammy said.

Gibbons
agreed.

“You
coming, Sherwood?”

Sherwood
did not react to Sammy’s question. He did not even blink.

“Sherwood!”

Nothing.

“Let’s
go,” Gibbons yelled. “Hurry.”

Sammy
and Wesley ran down the bank of the river, wary of doing anything that might
cause a twisted ankle or other serious injury.

“How
far away did it sound?” Sammy asked.

“Couldn’t
have been much more than a half-kilometer.”

A
second cry pierced the air, this time from the opposite direction. It was
bloodcurdling and filled with terror. The voice belonged to Sherwood. Sammy and
Gibbons stopped running and looked at each other. Sammy’s brain went into
decision mode.

“We
have more people closer to Levu and the Hudecs than Sherwood.”

“You’re
the leader, Sammy.”

Sammy
took off toward Sherwood. Gibbons sprinted behind him. All he could think about
was what this invisible death might be, and whether or not his team had just
been attacked by such beasts. Had he made the wrong call to leave Sherwood by
himself?

What
else could I do? Force Sherwood to snap out of it? He was practically
catatonic!

Sammy
tried to put the thoughts out of his mind as he raced back up the river, but he
couldn’t. By the time they reached the spot where they’d left Sherwood, he was
gone. All they found was his radio, now silent, and small pools of blood in his
boots’ prints.

Gibbons
crouched down to examine the area. “He’s been dragged off. Something with paws.
Something pretty big. This way!”

Gibbons
ran toward the denser foliage. Sammy tried to catch up, but stepped in a spot
where his boot sank deep into the mud.

“Wesley,
wait!” he called out. “Wait for me!”

He
blasted multiple times until his foot came free; his boot, however, remained.
Sammy cursed his shoe in every way he could think of, yanking it out of the
muck. Finally it came loose. The effort took no more than a minute. He jammed
his foot into it, ignoring the centimeter or two of mud squishing around his
toes. Then he sprinted off again, calling to Wesley. Once in the foliage, there
was no sign of Wesley except the prints of his boots.

“Dang
it, Wesley!” Sammy shrugged off his pack and left it with Sherwood’s radio,
then followed the footprints at a run. He watched the ground to make sure he
was going the right way. As he crashed through another spot of thick bushes,
the ground turned steep and slick, and Sammy lost his footing. The resulting
tumble would have been much worse had Sammy not been able to blast and break
his fall.

At
the bottom of the slope, he picked himself up and looked around. The trees in
this small valley were larger and more spread out, but the canopy above was
thicker. It gave Sammy the impression that instead of nearing noon it was
approaching evening. Each step he took, his boots sank several centimeters. He
saw no sign of Sherwood or Wesley now. What he did see, however, was the jungle
moving toward him.

It
was the most bizarre thing Sammy had ever seen. The jungle around him: leaves,
tree trunks, mud, and bushes rippled as though he saw the world through puddles
of water. Everything was alive and moving. The effect of the motion sped up, and
a growl came from somewhere unseen. A large, fanged mouth appeared from out of nowhere—out
of the air itself. The gaping mouth charged at him. Sammy blasted at it.
Something huge and powerful hit his blasts, flew over his head, and landed hard
in the mud and leaves.

“Sammy,
the tree!” Wesley hollered. “Climb the tree!”

Whatever
had attacked Sammy quickly got back on its feet.

“Hurry!”

Sammy
sprinted over to the tree where Wesley hid. Large paws crunched leaves and
squished the mud as the invisible beast pounded after him. Sammy clenched his jaw
and ran as fast as he could.

“Now,
Sammy! Jump NOW!”

The
mud dulled the power of Sammy’s jump-blast, but he still managed to launch
himself into the air. He sensed the creature—the invisible death—right behind
him. He felt the heat of its breath, the rush of the air, and the sting of its
claw as it swiped at his leg, cutting open the leg of his pants. He grabbed
hold of a branch and swung himself up into the safety of the tree. The creature
attacked the trunk of the tree, scrabbling at the bark with its claws. That was
when Sammy finally realized what “invisible death” really meant.

The
creature blended in almost perfectly with its environment. However, once Sammy
knew what to look for and knew where it was, he could see it … sort of. He
climbed the branches until he settled in next to Gibbons, whose pale, pained
face told Sammy that something was wrong. After taking a long draught from his
flask, Gibbons glanced down at his ankle. Sammy looked down, too, and saw the
damage. Gibbons’ foot was turned at an angle that no foot should be turned at. Blood
soaked his sock, and a bone jutted out from his skin like the head of a jagged,
red, and white knife.

“Puts
a damper on things, doesn’t it?” Gibbons asked in a shaky voice. “Don’t know
how I climbed this tree.”

“It’ll
be okay,” Sammy said. “We’ll wait here for help. You got a flare gun?”

“Yeah,”
Gibbons said, “in my pack.”

Sammy
dug through it and found the flare. “Use it now or wait until it gets darker?”

“Now,”
Gibbons said.

Pointing
the gun skyward, Sammy pulled the trigger and heard nothing but a click. He
pulled it again with the same result.

Gibbons
didn’t seem surprised. “My stuff got pretty wet more than once.

“Great.
Now what?”

“I
guess we yell and wait.”

“Where’s
Sherwood?”

Gibbons
didn’t answer, which made Sammy wonder if he’d been heard.

“Wesley,
where’s Sherwood?”

Gibbons
took another swig from his flask. Drops of booze dribbled down his chin. “What—what’s
left of him is over there.” He pointed to a spot on the ground about forty
meters from their tree.

Mixed
in with the mud and fallen leaves, Sammy saw the remnants of Sherwood Frieber,
recognizable only by his tattered clothes, being devoured by several invisible
creatures. Sammy closed his eyes and let out a long, soft breath through his
nose.

 “There’s
more than one of them … whatever’s, you know, eating him,” Gibbons said. “I
know this is crazy, but I think we’re dealing with jaguars.”

“Jaguars?”
Sammy thought about this for a moment. “How do you know?”

“Because
they started with Sherwood’s head. A jaguar does that.” He looked sickened by
the fact that he knew this. “Watched a lot of nature shows.”

“I’ve
seen them in the zoo,” Sammy said. “They’re spotted, sometimes black. How
would—” He remembered the thylacine in the fox’s penthouse with her large
muzzle and yellow-green stained teeth, the monkey from hell, and now this.
Modifications
,
the fox had called them. “They’ve been modified, just like the thylacines and
the monkeys. These jaguars—if that’s what they are—jaguars are native to the
jungle, right?”

“Yes.
That’s right.”

“He’s
improved them. Camouflaged them like lizards.”

“Made
them bigger and faster, too. Those things are huge. Probably why they can’t
climb the trees like normal jaguars.” Gibbons grabbed at his ankle and hissed.
His face turned a little whiter.

“You
okay?” Sammy asked.

“Why?
Why would the CAG do this? Must have cost.… ” He gritted his teeth in pain and
took another swallow of alcohol. “… cost millions, don’t you think?”

“To
protect the facility. To keep people away. Weaponized animals bred to be more
aggressive than usual will keep people away from Coari. To survive these
animals, humans would have to carry weapons and tech, which, of course, would
set off the Hive’s sensors. Animals are natural to the environment, even if
they’re tweaked. Predators in their own habitat.”

“Makes
sense, but something else is wrong. Jaguars are more nocturnal, and they don’t
eat or hunt in packs. They’re territorial.”

“He
could have tweaked that, too. He knows what he’s up against.”

“What
does that mean … ‘he?’ Who are you talking about?”

“A
very intelligent man who takes every precaution. The man in charge.”

“So
what do we do, Sammy?”

“Yell
for help.”

After
ten minutes of shouting, Sammy’s throat began to burn. They stopped and saved
their voices for later. Sammy tried to come up with something, some plan to get
himself and Gibbons out of the mess, but
saw
nothing.

“What
resources do we have? You got anything on you that’s useful?”

Gibbons
pulled out a small pistol that held a fully-loaded seven-round magazine. “Not
much stopping power to these. It’d probably take three or four shots to cripple
one of those monsters unless I put a bullet right in the brain. It’s something,
but not enough.”

I
should have brought my pack!
Sammy told himself.
Flares,
weapons, ammo. What was I thinking?

Chill.
Think. There has to be a way out of this mess.

“How
well do you think you can move?” he asked Gibbons.

“Somewhere
between a sloth and a tortoise.” Gibbons wasn’t joking. “I’m in quite a bit of
pain here, friend. I don’t think I can put a lick of pressure on this foot
without starting to black out. Let’s give it time. Someone will find us.”

They
waited another twenty or so minutes before crying out for help again. This
became a pattern through the day: yelling until their voices began to hurt,
then waiting. Yelling and waiting. In between, they had bits of conversation.
Sammy found out that Wesley Gibbons had been a ballroom dancer in college who’d
planned to go to medical school until he changed his mind, married his dancing
partner, and went to business school. From there, he became the CFO of a large
company that sold photography equipment. When Wesley decided to leave their
home and join the resistance, his wife divorced him and left him to raise their
daughter, Cloudy—short for Claudia—the same Cloudy who had spread the rumors
about Sammy’s Anomaly Thirteen.

Sammy
told Gibbons about life as an orphan, then as a Beta, and about his trek north
with Toad. As they conversed, Sammy kept an eye on the jaguars, who now seemed
more interested in the contents of the tree than what was left of Sherwood.

“Think
eventually they’ll get bored and leave?” Sammy asked.

“No
idea. But with our luck the last few weeks.… ” He took another sip from his
flask.

“That
from your pack?” Sammy asked, pointing to the alcohol container.